Sliding Into Jewishness: A Pentimento of Portamento

Document
Document

Portamento is "the carrying of a sound with the voice or stringed instrument, the transition from one note to another, higher or lower, without break in the sound." This research explores the concepts of "Jewishness" and "individuality" as they relate to violin soloists of the early and later parts of the twentieth century, focusing in particular on their use of portamento in the performance of Jewish art music. The paper defines a new formal, atomic language for portamento classification and analysis, and it proceeds to use this system to analyze the contextual portamento use in Jacob Gegna's "Choz – Jewish Melody" and in twelve recordings of Ernest Bloch's "Nigun", demonstrating the patterns this system reveals as well as suggesting further applications to integrate this system with microanalysis of other key musical parameters.

    Item Description
    Name(s)
    Thesis advisor: Slobin, Mark
    Date
    April 15, 2016
    Extent
    63 pages
    Language
    eng
    Genre
    Physical Form
    electronic
    Discipline
    Rights and Use
    In Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Permitted
    Digital Collection
    PID
    ir:1221